I wish I was 19. I knew everything when I was 19.

One time, I went to the zoo.

I saw zebras, lions, but no kangaroos.

The penguins were hiding behind fake snow.

The whales did not know where to go.

The monkeys weren’t friendly.

And it made me think,

“Will it be the same if I come here next week?”

Some things aren’t as great as they seem.

We build them up beyond our wildest dreams.

What if we lived with no expectations?

And stopped making so many speculations?

I think I’d be happier if I stopped assuming something is missing

Or stopped spending my time reminiscing.

Out of all that I've learned, this lesson stands true:

No one loves you as much as you think they do.

I made a list of everything that scares me:

1. Bubbles Baths

2. Old wigs

3. Answering the phone

4. Printing

5. Eating dairy at work

6. Not drinking enough water

7. Walking alone in the dark

8. High fructose corn syrup

9. Being kidnapped

10. Being assassinated

11. Eating dairy at home

12. Big Dogs that like to pee on my new shoes

13. Talking to people on the phone too long

14. Touching my phone after it’s been on the floor

15. Billie Eilish

16. Forgetting everything

17. Remembering everything

18. Meeting a guy at a coffee shop in Venice, Italy and falling in love only to find out he's my cousin

19. Going to the gym

20. Not going to the gym

21. Mice

22. Not recycling

23. Hairballs

24. Getting pregnant from a toilet bowl

25. Driving from the passenger side

26. Contact Sports

27. Eating dairy at my friend’s house

28. Falling in love with someone who hates me and marrying them (statistically this is possible, and I am easily tricked)

29. Having to move back home

30. Never being able to go back home

I did this because my therapist (who is me) told me I should make a list of everything that causes me anxiety to find the root cause of it. (This seemed like advice a real therapist would give, so I decided to give it to myself.) Even though this list seems sporadic, I noticed a trend. The first time I was introduced to each thing on this list was under the context of fear.

Crazy. Insane. I'm not sure I can go back far enough into my childhood to figure out why those things were introduced to me the way they were, but I do think I know where to go from here.

You know Jeff Garlin? He was in Wall-e, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Goldbergs, and lots of other movies and TV shows. I saw him at a stand-up show the other night. One of the best parts of his show was when he told us he lost weight because he learned to sit with his feelings.

Did y'all notice how instead of telling a beautiful story about how I finally bit the bullet and bought some therapy, I talked about a comedy show? Classic. Anyway.

I thought, "Mmmm, I have a lot of lower back pain. Wonder if these two things are related?"

I'm no doctor, (because if I was, I would have already popped my back into alignment) but I think my back pain and stress about everything (literally everything) are related. Holding tension in your body due to stress is not a new thing. I went to App State. This was on every poster. I've done Yoga, meditating, exercising, I even tried drinking water, but never sitting with my feelings.

So, now I will sit.

I feel nice. Not because I have answers but because now I know what questions I'm asking.

I wanted to close this out with some nice, rhyming one-liner that ties all of these things I've talked about together, but I'm not going to. I'm not a salesman. I don't have to close something to feel alive. It's also symbolic (love symbolism) because when you sit with your feelings, that doesn't always mean you'll get closure, but you do get a little peace.